Anyone who has wandered into any thick forest for a quick shortcut to the main road will have realised that there exist several trails on which many would have stepped in the past. How these trails are formed. Safe to presume that initially, no one knew about these trials. Someone would have gone exploring the forest in search of a shorter route. While doing so his feet would have crushed the leaves, plants etc. The vegetation would have been destroyed. But the footsteps over the leaves must have left a mark to denote someone else that earlier someone has traversed on this path. Over a period of time when many follow the trail a path indicating the shortest route has emerged. In this process, one will notice the emergence of several paths. Some are shorter while others are long-winded. These are the results of several explorations by travellers in search of the shortest route. But soon the most travelled pathway becomes v distinctly visible while the ones less travelled again disappear in the bushes. A sort of collective intelligence has been developed about the route while in reality no one actually knew the shortest route. To put it differently, a totally unplanned exploration in which members had no prior knowledge, and no interpersonal communication except following the footprints are able to achieve the goal of reaching the main road through the trail shortcut. It is as if, by magic, a new route, a new protocol has been opened.
What appears to be magical is a way of life for several insects in the animal world. Ants use a chemical called Pheromones which are left behind for them to follow in search of food. Once the food source is located the ants leave back strong pheromones for others to follow and a trail is opened up from the nest to the food source. Where there is no food the Pheromone dries up and that trail gets disappeared exactly in the same way the trail not used by humans and that which gets disappeared in the thick vegetation. In this process, another thing happens- of course without any planning. The shortest route from food to the nest gets developed thanks to the strong traces of Pheromones. What is common in both the above instances is that there appears no central guidance or control. There is no pre-existing map to make the task easier. Everything is happening through a sort of local behaviour that results in collective intelligence. But this has happened due to the desire-in the first instance- to find the shortcut to the main road- and in the second instance – to get the food to the nest. This nudge or hint is a critical element for development of the critical intelligence. Imagine four writers have been ‘nudged’ to develop an outline about a storyline. No one knows what the other has in mind while developing their outline except for a hint. Then the outlines are shared with each other (human pheromones). Based on the respective themes a collective story emerges about which they were totally ignorant in the beginning. This is classic ‘nudge’ and ‘stigmergy’in action. Stigmergy comprises a mechanism that, in collective terms, leads to the appearance of a map made by all of the agents involved. Ant trails emerge, they are not the result of a previous plan, an order, or any kind of intentional act. Each ant really does nothing more than act on her own limited, local scale, without ever perceiving the map that appears as a result. But although each individual lacks this capacity, the colony seems to act as a whole. This is so much the case that the swarm can be seen as an independent entity, a higher level of life, possessing a collective intelligence. Let us examine the interplay between nudge and stigmergy in more detail. Both are mechanisms of prompting individual behaviour or collective action via the environment. In stigmergy unknown to others each member leaves behind a trail which is picked up by others and a sort of collective plan of action materialises. Nudging on the other hand provides a choice that encourages a desirable action from a set of alternate behaviour patterns. In this sense, it is a controlled and to some extent manipulated intervention. The folks at the Amsterdam airport had a problem in their hand to keep the airport toilets clean. Often men using the toilets made the floor dirty by peeing all over the place. Not aiming in the right direction was the probable cause. What was the solution? One obvious and direct approach would be to post a message asking men to keep the washroom clean. But what they did was something unusual. They etched a picture of a fly in the urinal and surprise of surprises men started aiming at the fly and no more the floor was dirty. The cleaning bill went down by 80%. This is a classic “nudge” theory in real-life application. On my recent trip to Singapore, I noticed that all the washrooms at Changi International Airport had fly etched in the urinal pots. Behaviour modification happens when men have something to ‘aim at’ and in this case, it happens to be the fly. The principle of nudging has its root in Behavioural Economics and it has great relevance to the system of delivering vocational education as it is practiced all over. Instead of a direct message- which is often the way education is delivered if we nudge the youth in an indirect manner it is more likely to be internalized. The principle underlying the way we act and behave depends on what is now known as the duel thought process theory. We normally operate from two mindsets. The first one is fast, automatic and emotional almost like a reflex action and the second one is slow, deliberate and logical. A writer has compared the first to the famous bumbling Homer Simpson and the second one to the equally famous Spock of Star Trek. Now the point here is that we meet more of the Simpsons in the world than the Spocks. And that means that our strategy for modifying the behaviour pattern has to consider nudging than direct coaching. It is all revolving around the choice of architecture. Our training is often very direct and forced. Can we make it indirect and with a gentle nudge? Let me give more everyday examples to stress this point. In India, we have this tendency of throwing garbage outside the house. The assumption is that if it is outside my house I am ok. One approach would be to levy fine on littering and posting messages that littering is prohibited. Now if we supply the garbage bag with the name of the house owner written on it what would happen? I am sure suddenly people would become responsible and take the bag to the bin. The second example would be of eating more than necessary. If people are not conscious of how much they are eating if we replace the big plate with a smaller one automatically they would eat less. The third example would be of a small child that messes up their room with all the playthings spread all over. One direct way would be to reprimand the child and ‘order’ him to tidy his room. We all know that this will be met with stiff resistance or a cry. Instead To conclude if we play the tidy game with the child am sure he will enjoy and actively participate in cleaning the room. The Montessori system has understood this principle very well.
To conclude the argument that I would like to advance is this… For bringing about a behaviour modification complete centralised control is counterproductive. In an organisation, it is not necessary that every employee need to know its central mission well. It actually will be counterproductive. At the same time leaving everything to the employees is also not a wise strategy. What is needed is a centralised hint about the goal and creating a stigmergic environment in which members explore the options and follow the trail to reach the goal. Self-learning not only motivates the individual but also encourages group activity that results in achieving the goal much faster and with greater satisfaction. Another critical point to be considered is at what point in time the nudge needs to be introduced. Should it be in the beginning? In the middle? That will be the theme for my next article.
